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Sunday, June 14, 2015

The "V"

Summer has arrived and with it, higher temperatures. I wanted to avoid the quasi-heat wave we were having so I set out early on Saturday morning.

As I reported last week, there was a tree which had fallen across a trail near the walkbridge over I-691. I planned on removing it, and it would require the services of my chainsaw.

But first, I had to get there.

I started by picking up trash around the dirt parking area at the northwest corner of Mirror Lake, where I came upon my first Find of the Week.

Well, either Libigrow is popular or we have a serial user in Hubbard Park, as I reported recently on finding another packet of the product.

I walked west on the trail and reached the fallen tree.

The small branch added at the base of the tree was placed there by mountain bikers to aid riding over the log. I say just remove the log altogether.

With that goal achieved, I walked the remainder of the trail to West Main Street then turned around and headed back to the park via other trails, collecting trash as I went.

I reached my van and deposited my first bag of trash.

My chainsaw would no longer be needed; time to switch tools.

Next, I headed over to Percival Park Road and walked toward the north end of Merimere Reservoir, to pick up trash and complete Part V of my Five Year Plan. Now that the west side of the road is complete, I plan to begin trimming around the parking lot at West Peak. I expect to begin around the July 4th holiday.

Enroute, I discovered there must me some unwritten rule that it's okay to leave your doggy poop bags on the steps of the building by the retention ponds. I guess it's inside knowledge.

Then I came upon my second Find of the Week. E.T. lost the antenna for his Phone Home device. It was in rough shape, too.

Here's how it looked when it was new!

As I walked north, I paused by Echo Point and trimmed branches away on the near side of the guard rail. The view is being obscured by trees growing downslope on the far side of the guardrail. I'm toying with the idea of restoring the view by clearing out the trees below. We'll see.

At the north end a did a U-turn and picked up trash from the opposite side of the road.

If you traced the route I traveled today you'd find it sort of formed the letter "V" hence the title of this week's post!